Camden Reeves is a new name to me, but he has
already a considerable track record as a composer. He has
been Composer Fellow with the Hallé Orchestra, and has been
a teacher at the University of Manchester since 2002. The
works on this disc are partly the result of a collaboration
with pianist Richard Casey, funded through a fellowship at
that University through the Arts and Humanities Research Council
of Great Britain.

The pieces have not been recorded chronologically,
and the opening work Das Hexenklavier was premiered
by Richard Casey in May 2006. This is an impressively consistent
work, exploring the resonance of the piano through the harmonic
series, and Scriabin-like chords and intervals. There is also
a less musically obvious influence in the chromatic counterpoint
of Sweelinck, but the titles of the three movements, Praeludium,
Ricercare and Toccata are intended to pay homage to that composer.
The drama of the title is reflected in the music, being a
reference to ‘The Witch Hammer’ of 1484, a guide book for
the detection, trial and punishment of necromancers.

If anything more intense and dramatic, the
Notturno dale fiamme del’inferno has its origins in
a quotation from John Milton’s Paradise Lost. It shares
some of its resonant sound-world with the previous work, and
has a comparably short Praeludium as a gateway to the
second movement, the true meat of the piece. This Ricercare
is a strikingly complex contrapuntal piece, retaining
a tonal heart and an essential approachability despite the
considerable technical demands, both compositionally – for
the listener – as well as for the performer.

Inventions and Fantasies is the earliest
of the works on this disc, and is described by the composer
as “something of a technical breakthrough” in his work at
the time. There is a parallel development of two cycles in
the piece, the Inventions being intense and concentrated
explorations of limited materials. These seem to be more the
founding style for the first two works on the CD. The Fantasies
are freer, more improvisatory, and less bounded by the
pulse of a strict tempo. All of these movements as individual
‘miniatures’ and the piece as a whole are a remarkable achievement,
and it is easy enough to hear why the further development
of Reeves’ music for piano became such a hot potato.

Diablo Canyon is subtitled ‘Toccata
per motum perpetuum’, which goes a fair way towards answering
any questions as to the nature of the piece. Composed specifically
for this CD, the music rises from ‘thunderous ascending scales’.
Diablo Canyon is a nuclear power plant in California which
has to huge 1,100-megawatt generators, and the energy of the
music aptly seizes and renders in some way audible this mass
of electronic muscle.

Lucifer’s Dynamo extends the dialogue
between strict and free music, and was indeed written as a
companion work to Inventions & Fantasies. In this
case there are three cycles consisting of six each of inventions,
fantasies and canons. The canons are arranges in a series
of progressively more ‘dissonant’ polyrhythmic ratios between
the voices, reflecting Dante’s vision of hell as a series
of ever-contracting concentric circles. The last three canons
have the interesting concept of being continuously repeatable,
but with a built-in infinite ongoing acceleration which prevents
this happening “in our universe.” Indeed, the final canon
is left to repeat until the performer is physically no longer
able to keep going – a bit like that moment in Emerson Lake
& Palmer’s live Karn Evil 9, which I’m sure you
all must know.

In searching for references to other recent
composers in this music, it is Gyorgy Ligeti’s name which
was called to my mind the most. Both he and Reeves are interested
in the intensity which results from a full exploration of
limited musical materials, in scales and resonant harmonies,
but without an over emphasis on the kind of serial approach
which can become a limiting factor on the imagination. Despite
the colourful titles, these pieces are ‘pure music’ and entirely
abstract, despite a keen sense of the dramatic in terms of
content and gesture. Reeves is clearly fascinated by the value
of the harmonic series, but employs this in a manner which
integrates these sonorities into the scales and progressions
of the whole. Reeves’ voice is very striking and personal
in this work for piano solo, and, while the pieces can be
seen as an extension of the rich romantic world of Scriabin,
they are surely a significant contribution to piano repertoire
as a whole.

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